Ryan Edwards was never a father of the year candidate, and he seems to be getting worse with time.
The current season of Teen Mom OG has documented some of Edwards’ most egregious parenting mistakes to date.
First, we had Ryan showing up to Bentley’s birthday party (allegedly) intoxicated.
Shortly thereafter, we saw Ryan mock Bentley mercilessly during what was supposed to be a fun golf outing.
But what might have been the worst incident occurred during last week’s episode when Ryan joked that his son is overly-sensitive and imagined a future in which “girls will dump him just to see him cry.”
Like we said, this season has not done any wonders for Ryan’s already-battered reputation.
Which is why it’s so surprising that fans are siding with Ryan in his latest conflict with Maci.
What’s even more shocking is that they’re right to do so.
A preview clip for Tuesday night’s episode finds Bentley struggling to adhere to a very strict diet.
“Bentley is on a specific diet for his wrestling matches, and Maci hopes he sticks to it even when he’s away at Ryan’s,” reads MTV’s description of the clip.
First, we see Bentley complaining that he’s hungry during a workout session.
Maci tells him he can have a salad before his second workout later that night.
Bentley begs for grilled chicken, but his wish is denied.
Maci insists that her son is on a “very strict, very good healthy calorie diet”
It’s a difficult scene to watch, and if Maci were starving a daughter to improve the girl’s odds of success on the pageant circuit, she’d surely be crucified by viewers.
From there, Bookout fretted about Bentley sticking to his diet during a visit to Ryan’s house.
“Bentley is still splitting his time between our house and Ryan’s parents’ house,” she explained in a voice-over.
“So I hope when he’s over there, he’s sticking to his diet because he needs to stay in his weight class to be competitive.”
Sure enough, Ryan seemed less than supportive of his son’s new diet
“I thought wrestling was about technique. I know you gotta have a little bit of strength, so why aren’t you trying to gain weight? You need to be gaining weight,” Edwards said.
“You know what’s gonna happen? You’re gonna stunt your growth, then when you really…it’s time to get bigger, you’re just gonna be a late bloomer and it’s gonna suck for you,” Ryan continued.
Clearly, Ryan could have been nicer about it and not seized the opportunity to yet again make his son feel insecure about his masculinity.
And it’s possible that Ryan is questioning the wisdom of Bentley’s new diet simply because he enjoys contradicting Maci.
But the fact is, crash-dieting is a bad idea at any age, and at 11 years old, the lasting consequences could be devastating.
“I can’t imagine any pediatrician telling the parents of an 11 year old boy, about to enter puberty, to restrict his caloric intake by so much,” one fan commented on the YouTube page for this preview.
“The dad’s right it could stunt the boy’s growth.”
Yes, it’s not often that the public is on Ryan’s side.
In fact, this may be a phenomenon that Maci has never experienced before.
But encouraging an already-skinny 11-year-old to lose weight for a sport is objectively a bad idea, and there’s no denying that Ryan is right in this case.
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